Effects of Different Types of Incubators on Embryo Development and Clinical Outcomes

Main differences of incubators are humidity, temperature and gas control ways, which play important roles in regulating the steady state of culture media. In this study, we compared the effects of different types of incubators (air jacket incubators and water jacket incubators) on embryo development and clinical outcomes in human assisted reproduction. We found that temperature recovery time in air jacket incubators was significantly shorter than that in water jacket incubators. Although the O2 recovering time was also significantly shorter in air jacket incubators as compared with the water jacket incubator, no significant differences were observed in CO2 recovering time between two groups, which was also verified by pH recovering time of culture media. Besides, the temperature of culture medium in the dish covered with oil recovered more quickly in the air jacket incubators. However, there were no significant differences observed in the fertilization rate, Day 3 high-quality embryo rate, blastocyst rate, good blastocyst rate and clinical outcomes between two groups. These results indicate that the microenvironment, especially the temperature, in air jacket incubator recover faster than that in water jacket incubators, however, there were no significant differences in embryo development and clinical outcomes between two types of incubators.